Many nuclear reactor designs are of circulatory type wherein the water heated in the reactor fuel core region must be separated from the cooler water outside of it. Such a nuclear reactor may be typically equipped with a cylindrical shroud around the fuel core. The shroud serves to separate the internal space in the reactor vessel between an “up-flow” (e.g. riser) region in which primary coolant heated by the core flows inside the shroud and the “downcomer” region in which colder primary coolant returned to the reactor vessel from the Rankine cycle steam generating system flows outside the shroud. It is desirable to minimize heat transfer from the heated hot reactor water inside the riser region of the shroud to the colder downcomer water outside the shroud which is deleterious to the thermodynamic performance of the reactor.
The standard practice in shroud design has typically consisted of hermetically enclosing a fibrous or ceramic insulation in a stainless steel (or another corrosion resistant alloy) enclosure. Such a shroud works well until a leak in the enclosure develops, usually caused by the thermal stresses and strains that are inherent to any structure operating under a temperature differential. Concerns regarding failure of the shroud and subsequent dismembering of the insulation have been a source of significant and expensive ameliorative modification efforts in many operating reactors.